Basil Boioannes

Basil Boioannes was the Byzantine catapan of Italy from 1017 to 1027.

Biography
Basil Boioannes was appointed Catapan of Italy in 1017 by Emperor Basil II of Byzantium, and he was tasked with crushing Melus of Bari's Lombard-Norman uprising in Apulia. Boioannes imported a unit of elite Varangian Guard warriors and crushed the rebels at the Battle of Cannae, but he decided to recruit the surviving Norman mercenaries into the Byzantine army. He hired several Norman knights and and stationed them at the newly-built fortress town of Troia, and Boioannes' Norman hires would later repulse the Holy Roman Emperor Henry II's invasion at Troia in 1022. Boioannes was planning an invasion of Muslim Sicily when the Emperor died in 1025, and he was instead sent to retake Capua by Emperor Constantine VIII of Byzantium. Boioannes was recalled in 1027, and his son Exaugustus Boioannes later replaced him as catapan.